Kiwi wins Top Australian Design Award

9 June 2006

Kiwi wins Top Australian Design Award –

After winning the Best Non-Consumer Product Award at the NZ Best of Design Awards, NZ Architect Mark Fraser has just won ‘Best Product’ and the overall ‘Design Excellence Award’ awarded by the Design Institute of Australia in Brisbane for his Markitcarts beating all entrants from the fields of Architecture, Interior Design, Fashion Design, Graphic Design and Product Design.

About Markitcarts

- A plastic shopping trolley completely unlike any previous or existing shopping trolley. Its design makes it more stable, more durable, safer, lighter, and easier to control than a conventional steel trolley.

The Markicart is a monocoque construction of energy-absorbing, UV-resistant, fire-resistant, recyclable, shatter-proof plastic.

It has a fluid shape, without sharp edges, no steel base frame that children can stand on and a lower centre of gravity design that places loads over the large fixed rear wheels. These design features and the self braking rear wheels make Markitcarts safer, easier to steer and control.

Up to two children can be carried in the Markitcart’s child seat.

Mark Fraser says “all markets are attracted to the overall design and business model but the Americans are clearly focused on the safety aspects – in particular the unique child restraint system that uses a child’s own weight to keep the child restrained and the unique self braking wheels which limit the speed of a Markitcart to the equivalent of a fast walking pace reducing the level of personal injuries and damage to cars. The French, Italians and Spanish love the design aesthetics and Europeans in general are focused on their environmental advantages.”

The Judges for the NZ Award said the design represented a complete paradigm change for a well-known product: Markitcart in itself is a powerful statement.

He says the major retailers he is dealing with around the world have all been very responsive - in some cases seeking exclusivity.

For a copy of the photo that accompanies this release please visit:
http://mediacom.nzpa.co.nz/attachments/7346_md9714.JPG

ENDS

© Scoop Media